


we only say goodbye

by BeggarWhoRides



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Depression, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Major Illness, Mentions of Cancer, Suicide, Terminal Illnesses, mentions of drug abuse, this is a fic about terminal teens please don't come in expecting a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 04:33:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7998757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeggarWhoRides/pseuds/BeggarWhoRides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cosima attends a camp for the terminally ill where she meets Delphine, a volunteer.</p>
<p>Please, please mind the warnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we only say goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for: Major character death, explicit discussion of suicide, chronic and terminal illness, mentions of cancer, death, grief and mourning.

“I’m just saying, this seems like the most depressing thing ever.”

_“Cosima,”_ Cosima’s mother sighs, not for the first time. Her hands flutter around Cosima the same way they’ve done ever since they got Cosima’s diagnosis--worried, but scared that if they touch, Cosima will break.

Cosima hates it.

“Seriously, whose idea was this? ‘Oh look, terminal teenagers! Let’s stick them all in the middle of the woods so they can braid hair and roast marshmallows before they _croak.”_

_“Cosima.”_ This time it’s her father, his voice like glass breaking. His hands are clenched around the steering wheel. Next to her in the backseat, her mother has gone very pale. Cosima wilts into herself, fiddling with her oxygen cannula.

“Sorry.” Her mother swallows and smiles--too wide, too brittle--and brushes her hand against Cosima’s knee.

“I’m sure you’ll have fun. It’ll be nice for you to hang out with other--with kids your age. You haven’t been getting out much.”

_Because I’m dying._ Cosima bites her lip to stop herself from saying it, but the words rattle around in her head anyway, like bitter pills. The D word had never been permitted in the house. Even Cosima danced around it, for all her gallows humor. ‘Terminal’ was a diagnosis. All the crude euphemisms were jokes.

‘Dying’ is dying.

_Fucking autoimmune disorders. Fucking polyps every-fucking-where._

_Fucking fate._

“We’re here,” her father announces suddenly, pulling into a camp that looks exactly like it had on the brochure--all idyllic pine trees, small log cabins, a bonfire pit--except for all the sick teens wandering around. There are lots of wheelchairs and walkers, kids dragging oxygen tanks like Cosima’s, lots of bald heads and IV poles.

Her father parks the car and is out and opening Cosima’s door before Cosima even manages to get her seatbelt undone.

“I’ve got it, Dad,” Cosima half-snaps as he grabs her oxygen tank, then tries to take her arm.

Her father looks up at her, and for a moment he looks so impossibly sad that it takes Cosima’s breath away--well, more so than usual.

“Let me do this for you, pumpkin,” he murmurs, so gently. “I can at least do this for you.”

Cosima lets him help her out of the car.

“Cosima Niehaus?” The voice is soft and melodic, lightly accented, and Cosima looks up immediately. There’s a woman standing there, somehow managing to make the terrible mass-issue green t-shirts with the camp’s logo on it look good on her. She’s tall and willowy and looks stunningly healthy compared to everyone else Cosima’d seen, with a full head of gorgeous blonde curls tucked up into a bun and warm brown eyes. She extends a manicured hand and Cosima takes it automatically.

“Y-yeah,” she half-stutters. “That’s me.”

“I’m Delphine Cormier. I’m one of the volunteers here.” She smiles, warm and gentle, and here is where Cosima would normally jump in with a grin and a pickup line--she’s not dead yet, and Delphine is _beautiful_ \--but Cosima also has a year left if she’s lucky and polyps slowly but surely taking over her body.

“Nice to meet you,” she mutters instead. Delphine, unperturbed, squeezes her hand gently before letting go.

“You’ll be in Cabin B--there’s a few other girls who will be staying there, but you are the first here, so you will get your pick of bunk. I’ll take your bags over, but you can rearrange as you like.”

“That can’t be in your job description,” Cosima objects, trying to stop Delphine from taking the heaviest bag.

“You’d be surprised,” Delphine said with a smile, skillfully dodging Cosima’s protesting hand and taking the bag anyway. “Besides, we will be seeing a lot of each other for the next month. I’m sure you will find a way to make it up to me.”

She winks, actually winks, and Cosima feels her heart stutter in a way that had nothing to do with illness.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Cosima!” Cosima looks up from her suspicious inspection of what claimed to be meatloaf to see Delphine sliding into the seat next to her. “Do you mind if I join you?”

“No, but are you sure you want to?” Cosima asks, moving her tank over to make sure Delphine had room to slide in. “I mean, joining campers in eating--I honestly can’t figure out what this is,” Cosima amends, a little laughter bursting out of them both. “But subjecting yourself to it can’t be in your job description.”

“We have to eat exactly what the rest of you do,” Delphine admits, prodding her own meal. “Besides, you looked like you needed company.”

“Still. You don’t have to be here.”

“I am here,” Delphine retorts at that, before taking a bite of ‘meatloaf’ and pulling a face that sent Cosima into a fit of giggles strong enough to set off a round of coughing.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Cosima snaps back, maybe a little harshly, as she wipes her mouth with a napkin and surreptitiously checks for blood. “Don’t fuss.”

Delphine falls back immediately, and Cosima pretends she doesn’t see the way Delphine keeps shooting her little worried glances. She’d signed up to work with terminal kids. She should’ve known what she was getting into.

“Hey, you know what?” she says, shoving aside her plate. Delphine looks up questioningly. “The campers and you volunteers might have to eat this shit, but I swear I saw some of the supervisors eating food that looked way more edible than this. And I bet I know where they keep the food.”

“Are you promoting theft?” Delphine sounds skeptical, but she’s already pushed away her own plate.

“I’ll distract, you grab?”

“I could lose my job,” Delphine points out, but she’s smiling. Cosima stands and held out a hand, wiggling her fingers enticingly.

“Come on. Let’s live a little.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cosima’s roommates are nice enough--not exactly who she’d choose to spend her fleeting time with, but definitely not the worst. Jennifer, especially, is kind almost to a fault, and with a similar disease eating up her body, she and Cosima bonded relatively easily. Krystal was ridiculously chipper for someone with cancer, with four different wigs and boxes of false lashes and eyebrows. She made the entire cabin smell like acetone but she was impossible to hate.

Beth, in the next bunk over, was...a little bit of a bitch. But in a weird, sisterly way, Cosima liked her.

Not, however, when she iss grinning lecherously over at Cosima and asking “So, how’s _Delphine?”_

“I...what? Who? Delphine? Yeah, I don’t know.”

“Sm _oooo_ th.”

“Why are you asking me?”

“You _know_ why,” Krystal breaks in, adjusting her blondest wig as she swung her legs over the edge of her bunk, fixing Cosima with a challenging stare. “You like her.”

“She’s nice,” Cosima deflects. “You know, volunteers-at-a-camp-for-terminal-kids nice. How can you not like her?”

“You know what she means,” and this time it’s Jennifer, her voice a little weak from where she struggles to sit up in bed. Krystal hops over to Jennifer and slides into Jennifer’s bed, supporting her. “We _all_ know what she means, so stop dodging the question. You _like_ her.”

“I...” Cosima flails a bit under the stares of the three, finally just dropping her gaze to her lap. “I know better than that.”

“Bull _shit,”_ Beth intones dryly. “Come on, Niehaus, I know you’re a nerd and all, but since when does logic come into play with crap like this? You’re still human. You’re still alive. And Cormier is gorgeous. If I didn’t have Paul...”

“Oh my God,” Cosima groans, flopping back on her bed and shoving the nearest pillow over her face. “That is _so_ not the point.”

Beth plucks the pillow out of Cosima’s hands, and smacks Cosima in the head with it when she tried just rolling back over. “So what is the point?”

“The point is that we’re kind of all gonna be pushing up daisies soon!” Cosima yells finally, snatching the pillow back. “How long are any of us going to last? Half a year? A year? And I’m supposed to just waltz into her life knowing I’m going to rip it apart--knowing that all I’m going to give her is pain?”

“Maybe the point isn’t just what you give her,” Krystal says softly in the resulting heavy silence, running her hand up and down Jennifer’s arm. “But what she can give you, y’know? Maybe when life is so sucky--when it--when you’re d-dying,” she says with a shuddering breath, “Maybe then you’re allowed to be selfish. And maybe...well, maybe you should let her have a say.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Cosima--Cosima, _stop!”_ Delphine squeals, jerking away from the spray of water Cosima was kicking up. They were at the lake, the sky blue and cloudless and infinite above them and the water warm. Cosima was perched at the edge of the low dock, her oxygen tank behind her and her feet bare and dangling in the water. Delphine is in the water, pushing her sodden curls out of her face and looking up at her in mock outrage.

“I don’t get to swim, I can at least splash.” Cosima flutters her eyelashes, all innocence. Delphine isn’t fooled for a moment, huffing in a way that sounds more fond than annoyed before she twists in the water so she’s laying on her back, drifting in front of Cosima.

She’s wearing a black bikini. Cosima tries very hard not to notice or think about that.

She fails.

“It is beautiful,” Delphine murmurs, eyes open only a slit. Cosima can’t tell what she’s looking at, so she looks at Delphine, her face serene and warmed by the sun, her curls streaming wide in the water, her pale limbs moving gently and lazily. She looks like a siren, or a goddess, or just like Delphine, too damn beautiful for this world.

“It is,” Cosima murmurs back. And then, because her body is cruel, she coughs and then starts to choke, the familiar rotting-copper taste of blood filling her mouth.

She dimly registers the sound of Delphine pulling herself out of the water and onto the dock, but isn’t expecting Delphine to pull her close the way she does, holding Cosima tight to her chest and not letting her double over the way her coughs try to force her to.

Delphine doesn’t let her fall.

Delphine murmurs things into Cosima’s hair, gentle and soothing even though Cosima can’t quite make out the words, her hand rubbing circles between Cosima’s shoulderblades, again and again until Cosima can breathe again.

“I’m sorry--”

“Let me.” Delphine’s hands are gentle on her chin and Cosima lets her guide her face up, blinks and finds herself inches from Delphine’s face.

“I--”

Delphine pulls a tissue out of nowhere and it’s then Cosima notices the hot, sticky feeling of blood on her lips and her chin, and tries immediately to pull away. “God, I’m sorry I don’t--cleaning me up isn’t in your job description--”

“I know,” Delphine says. She pulled her hands back the moment Cosima tried to pull away, but she’s still holding the tissue like a white flag. Her eyes are still fixed on Cosima’s. “Let me?”

Cosima lets her, closes her eyes and feels Delphine dab gently at her cheeks, Delphine’s fingers and her skin separated by tissue and Cosima’s blood. Delphine smells like the lake, and the sun, and something floral.

She smells like life.

They have one week left at the camp. Cosima has eight months, maybe. Cosima’s eyes flutter open and meet Delphine’s and she knows, in that instant, that she should kiss her.

She doesn’t.

“Let’s get you some dry clothes,” Delphine says simply, plucking up their towels. “Yours are all damp, now.”

“Yeah,” Cosima says, half-distracted. “Hey, Delphine? Thank you.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Beth dies that night.

Maybe morning, technically--sometime around midnight, nobody was sure. Paul--her boyfriend, who was so perfect for her, who Beth loved so much--had sent her a text. He’d only been with her because she was dying. He’d met someone else. He couldn’t do it anymore.

He hadn’t apologized.

Beth had gone through the entire camp, stealing every medication she could get her hands on and then, on that unholy cocktail, walked right into the lake.

The supervisor tells the rest of them--Krystal and Jennifer and Cosima, all sitting on Jennifer’s bunk because the moment the supervisor walked in with that look on his face, they’d closed ranks without thinking. Jennifer wilts, crumpling in on herself. Krystal screams for half a second before she clamps her hands over her mouth, her entire body shaking and tears streaming down her face.

Cosima stares at the supervisor for a long, long moment.

And then she runs.

She doesn’t move fast and she doesn’t get far, oxygen tank dragging behind her and her failing lungs screaming, but nobody was expecting her to bolt and the idyllic pines are the start to a surprisingly thick forest that it’s hard to see far into, especially in the rain.

Because it’s raining.

Of course it’s raining.

The wheels of the tank catch on a thick root and it’s the first time Cosima stops since she got out there, jerking on the handle once, twice, and then falling to the ground next to it.

It’s cold, and muddy, and wet, she knows. She can’t feel it at all.

She can’t feel anything beyond the screaming pain in her heart, the pain of _how could she do this,_ of _Beth how fucking dare you,_ of _you were supposed to be the strong one,_ of _you had a solid fucking year left, how could you just throw that away,_ of _fuck you, Paul, **fuck you,**_ and of _I loved you like a sister Beth, you were my fucking sister and you left me._

_You left me._

_“Cosima!”_ someone shrieks, and Cosima sags further into the ground. _“Cosima!”_

And Delphine appears, her hair a mess of sodden tangles, soaking wet and in no way dressed to be outside. She hauls Cosima off the ground, pulling off her own sweater and wrapping it around Cosima’s shoulders before pulling Cosima close.

“You _stupid_ \--Cosima, it is _soaking_ out here, you’ll catch your death--”

“Been there, done that,” Cosima rasps, still staring straight ahead like if she doesn’t look at anyone, none of this is real.

_“Merde,_ Cosima, this is not the time--we need to get you warmed up--” Delphine is all frantic movements, trying to rub warmth into Cosima’s arms, to get them both back to camp, and Cosima--

Cosima can’t move. She can’t think. Somewhere far away, she knows she is shaking, she knows that there are tears streaming down her face but she cannot quite find a way to blink. She knows Delphine is speaking, knows that what Delphine is saying is important, but she can’t--she can’t--

“Beth’s dead.” Delphine freezes at that, the rain pounding against the trees suddenly swooping into Cosima’s consciousness as a roar, like Delphine’s voice had been protecting her and now there was no shield.

“Cosima, I am so sorry,” Delphine whispers, hand tightening on Cosima’s shoulder. It feels like a tether. Delphine feels like a tether.

“She’s dead, and I’m dying,” and the last word trips off her tongue so easily, it’s such a simple five-letter word, and Cosima’s voice breaks as she says it. “I’m going to die. Just like her.”

_“No,”_ Delphine says, and her voice is like fire and Cosima’s eyes snap up to meet Delphine’s, startled and confused. “Not like Beth, Cosima, never like Beth. You will not be betrayed. You will never be alone, and you will always know--I will always tell you that you are loved.” It is Delphine who is crying now, her voice high and tight but her eyes so sincere as she takes Cosima’s face in her hands. She holds delicately, but not like Cosima’s mother who is so scared of breaking something--Delphine holds her face like she is holding something precious, something beautiful, something more valuable than anything else. “You must always know that you are loved, Cosima.”

Delphine leans in until their foreheads touch, but it’s Cosima who tilts her head and brings their lips together, a desperate confirmation that Delphine is all too eager to give. Where Delphine holds gently, Cosima clings like a frightened child, grabbing at Delphine’s shoulders, her hair, her waist. Cosima’s fingers brush over Delphine’s throat, over the jugular there and she feels for the smallest moment a heartbeat, so strong and so vital, and she thinks _oh. We are living. This is real. We are real._

_“Delphine,”_ she gasps when they pull away, and neither of them have stopped crying. “Delphine, Beth’s gone. My sister’s gone.”

“I’m here,” Delphine murmurs back.

And when Cosima collapses, Delphine catches her.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“May I come to see you? After you go home?”

Delphine is standing in the doorway, watching Cosima pack, and she looks incredibly hesitant and out-of-place.

“Won’t that be like, super far?”

“No, not necessarily--we actually live in the same city, some twenty minute’s drive--”

“How’d you figure that out?” A flush rises on Delphine’s cheek and Cosima smirks, crossing the distance to Delphine’s side. “Delphine, did you look at my camper file for personal gain? That is highly unethical of you.”

“Are you complaining now that I know we live nearby? That we can see each other after--if you’d like?”

“Do you really think I’m going to say no?” Cosima asks, and Delphine flushes a bit, glancing away. “Delphine. I should be the one worried about you ever coming to see me again--it’s not in your job description, after all. You could be free of me after this week, if you wanted.”

“I don’t want,” Delphine says, too quick, and it makes Cosima grin. “I would never want.”

“Then, yeah,” Cosima says, reaching out to catch Delphine’s fingers and tangle them through hers. “I’d like that, Delphine. I really would.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Delphine practically lives at the Niehauses after that month, coming over early in the mornings and leaving late after dinner, after those nights where she left at all. Cosima’s parents adored Delphine--Cosima’s father loved to chat with Delphine about old books and science, getting into lively debates with him and Cosima over the merits of various authors and schools of thought. Cosima’s mother put Delphine to work in the kitchen, which Delphine both loved doing and had a talent at, which Cosima was severely lacking.

“Don’t your parents miss you?” Cosima’s mother had asked once, when Delphine was staying over late one night.

“They don’t notice I’m gone,” Delphine had replied, as simply as if she was discussing the weather--like she’d thought it was ordinary.

Cosima’s mother took to aggressively mothering and feeding Delphine after that, to the point where Cosima sometimes grumbled that Delphine had somehow become the favorite daughter--though in reality she loves the way her mother has welcomed Delphine into the family so wholeheartedly, and the faintly confused look of delight Delphine gets on her face whenever Cosima’s mother includes her in something particularly familial or motherly.

Cosima goes on more medications, ups the outflow on her oxygen tanks, gets another machine to help her breathe during the night and sleeps a lot more during the day. She can’t quite hide her bloody coughing fits, but Delphine and her parents get better at hiding their stricken looks.

And there are good days, good hours, wonderful moments--Cosima’s father made Delphine laugh so hard she snorted, and Delphine had in turn looked so mortified that Cosima had fallen off the couch laughing. Cosima and Delphine had made cookies together, and managed to coat the kitchen and each other entirely in flour and bits of dough. All four of them went out to dinner, and Cosima held Delphine’s hand beneath the table, and it had all felt so normal and so fragile that Cosima had wanted to cry.

Jennifer’s funeral was three months after the end of camp and they all drove down together, and they barely stopped holding hands the entire trip. It was a beautiful ceremony--all flowers and light, held on a beach before her ashes were scattered at sea. It was beautiful in the way Jennifer had been beautiful, in a way that was genuine and pure, a beauty that was so natural it could hardly be anything else.

Krystal had been there too, her nails painted ocean blue and a scarf the color of the sky wrapped around her head. She’d been so skinny, desperately so, and in a wheelchair because her legs couldn’t support her anymore, but after the ceremony they’d had a moment for just the three of them, and reached out to grab both Delphine and Cosima’s hands.

She’d flown down from Washington D.C., she explained like she was apologizing, from a research hospital there. She’d gotten into an experimental treatment program there, and it was hell, but it was _working._

Krystal was in remission.

Cosima and Delphine both screamed, flinging their arms around Krystal in the same moment and pulling her close. They clung to each other, laughing and screaming underneath a sky that was the shade Jennifer had pointed to once and said was her favorite, next to the coast--Beth had always said she’d wanted to go to the sea.

And then, together, they cried.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You don’t need to be here for this part.”

Cosima’s voice scrapes out of her chest, and it takes almost more breath than she has to say it. Machines have almost entirely taken over her childhood bedroom, IV poles and monitors and things that essentially breathe for her--no ventilators, though, and no crash carts. Just things to ease the pain.

Delphine shifts from where she’s stretched out next to Cosima, the both of them crammed onto Cosima’s small bed, and places a bookmark in _On the Origin of Species._ They’d been reading it together--mostly Delphine reading aloud while Cosima dozed--but this seemed more important in the moment.

“Why,” Cosima starts, coughs, and starts again. “Why were you even volunteering there in the first place?”

“At the camp?”

“Seems like a hella depressing way to spend the summer.”

“Truthfully?” Delphine asks, setting aside the book and wrapping an arm around Cosima’s thin shoulders. “I thought it would look good on my college applications.”

Cosima bursts out laughing, the sound weak but her entire body shaking with it, and Delphine laughs too, holding Cosima close. “You--you’re not even gonna make up a story? Like...like your brother died, or you just...you’re just a good person?”

“I could have,” Delphine admits with a shrug. “But you would have seen through my bullshits immediately, no?”

“Damn right,” Cosima rasps before breathing out a long, slow sigh, her head dipping to rest on Delphine’s chest.

“Cosima?”

“Your job’s done, Delphine,” Cosima murmurs, her ear above Delphine’s heart. “This isn’t something you can put in a college essay--not without sounding melodramatic. Nobody’s paying you. I won’t tell. You can go.”

“I can go,” Delphine echoes, her hand rubbing up and down Cosima’s arm. “I know, Cosima. I knew that from the moment I met you. I could walk away and leave you--I could’ve always walked away and left you,” Delphine says, smooth and seamless, and Cosima didn’t expect how much it hurts to hear those words. “But I didn’t, Cosima. I didn’t, and I won’t. I met you because of my job, yes, because I wanted to write a good essay, but that is not why I stayed. That is not why I am here. This is not because of job, of duty, of--of college. This is because of you. This is because I want to be with you, this is because ever since I met you I didn’t want to leave you. This is because I,” and Delphine sucks in a breath, sharp like a drowning woman, “I love you, Cosima, and even though science cannot prove we have souls I know, despite logic, that I love you soul-deep. I love you, Cosima, and I always will.”

“I’m going to leave you,” Cosima sobs, Delphine’s tears falling on her head. “I don’t want to, _God,_ Delphine, I don’t want to, but I’m going to leave you.”

“That’s okay,” Delphine whispers, pressing kisses to the top of Cosima’s head. “It will all be okay. Because I will never leave you.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s sunny.

The sunlight streams through the window, and Cosima turns her head to face it, even though she’s not wearing her glasses, even though she can’t find the strength to open her eyes.

Delphine notices--she gets up, for just a moment, opens the blinds wider to let the light in, and then she comes back, slipping into bed next to Cosima, slipping her arms around Cosima. Delphine feels like sunshine, all warmth and light, pressed up against Cosima, and it is warm. It is good.

Her parents are there, they are holding her hands, and their voices are a faraway murmur, but they sound like sunshine, home and goodness and safe. Her mother kisses her cheek, and so does her father, and he runs his hand over Cosima’s head, and tells her that it’s okay. That she’s okay.

He says he loves her. Her mother says that too, again and again.

Delphine presses her forehead to Cosima’s. She promises to love her always. She promises to never leave.

And Cosima goes.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from What Sarah Said, by Death Cab for Cutie
> 
> This was supposed to be a tumblr minific. It didn't stay that way.
> 
> I am on tumblr at elizaskylers, come and say hi. Or send me a prompt, and I will put off answering it for two months and then spit out a mess like this one. Comments are so very welcome, and criticism very encouraged.
> 
> <3


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